


Meat and tubes

by themoonowl



Series: A Real Hero [17]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Anger, Colonist (Mass Effect), Fight Club - Freeform, Fist Fights, Gen, High Octane Angst, Loneliness, M/M, Male Friendship, Martial Arts, Mass Effect 2, War Hero (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themoonowl/pseuds/themoonowl
Summary: Samed takes up Garrus's offer.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard, Male Shepard & Garrus Vakarian
Series: A Real Hero [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429021
Kudos: 2





	Meat and tubes

_Just meat and tubes._

Those had been Jacob's words from a few months ago, and they had been echoing in Samed's head ever since he'd left Illium. The first time he'd heard them they were received with an equal measure of fear and wonder, the wonder of technology, of medicine. Bringing a man back to life was no small feat.

_Just meat and tubes._

Now those words burned, ached, lit the wires running under his skin on fire, wires that he'd tweaked, messed with, made his skin tougher, bones stronger. After all: the soul mattered, not the body it was merged with.

_Just meat and tubes. A body._

_A body screaming, helpless, not a sound coming from his mouth, no one hearing him scream—_

Samed lunged upright in his bed, gasping for air.

A body. A body that still remembered being spaced, a body that still _acted_ like it was being spaced.

A body on the other side of the bathroom mirror, a face without a scar on its forehead. He'd gotten that one while protecting someone he loved. A palm without a burnt little finger, the same burn that had caused a long, drawn out argument. An arm without a discolored patch of skin that used to be his very first bullet wound, taken for a squad of unlikely allies.

And yet, it was him, it was Baaba's face and Maama's eyes, it was—

_Did Cerberus ever tell you how they recovered your body?_

Had he seen them? _There?_ Had it hurt being pulled away from them for the second time, had it hurt—

_I gave it to them._

Samed clenched his teeth.

_I gave you to them, Shepard._

Clenched a fist too.

_All this time, it wasn't your sources. It was you! You did this to me!_

The dim light of the Main Battery painted Garrus's scarred face dark-red. A face whose mandibles twitched after Samed asked a certain question.

Then Garrus stood under a different set of dim lights in the cargo bay, in all his shirtless muscular glory, making the wires that ran under Samed's skin burn and ache at the sight. Loneliness? Anger? It didn't matter. It began:

Garrus charged him, and Samed's instincts kicked in. One quick move and Garrus was pinned down, tapping twice on the floor, like they'd agreed to do.

"Impressive." Garrus drawled in his low voice before turning, and adding: "For someone that just woke up from the dead, that is."

The wires in him lit up again, and Samed charged. The cargo bay spun around him, and ice shot up his back as he hit the floor, hard.

_Just meat and tubes._

He took the hand that Garrus gave and pulled himself up. With a wry grin he said: "Not bad, Garrus. Kinda slow, though. Might wanna work on that."

Garrus chuckled dryly, ready to pounce again.

The rules were unspoken but clear: a takedown for a takedown. One strikes. One falls. Again—

_Just meat and tubes._

And again.

_You did this to me!_

Until one or both couldn't keep up anymore.

_No it won't. I'll never work for Cerberus._

Samed shot-opened his eyes. "One more round," he said, nearly out of breath, and pushed himself up.

"You sure? That last fall was pretty bad."

_A square face. Amber eyes. Two years. A body. Two. Goddamn. Years—_

The wires under his skin were ready to explode in a fiery inferno. Loneliness? Anger? It didn't matter. It didn't _fucking_ matter because it was both.

He came back from the fucking dead, to a fucking suicide mission. The man he might have fucking loved, might have had a future with had probably attended his fucking funeral, his friends had fucking moved on, he was just meat and tubes, just a fucking revenant, he charged—

Icy pain shot through his whole body. His bruised half-robotic body that held a soul that ached for another body next to his. Another soul, someone to tell him that everything would be okay, that this was all just a bad nightmare from drinking too much after his sorta-date on the Citadel.

It wasn't. It was real. He curved into a ball and winced as all of his muscles achingly throbbed.

There was a click of an omni-tool and within seconds a healing sense of calm passed through him. A three-finger hand appeared which he grabbed and pulled himself up.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." He didn't dare look at Garrus. Not with the tears that pressed against his eyes. "I needed this. Thanks."

"Anytime. And hey. Good set of skills back there. That human martial art of yours is not so different from turian wrestling."

"Thanks." Samed put his shirt back on, forced a smile and turned to Garrus. "My opponent was skilled too."

The elevator stopped at Deck 1 and Samed got off and beelined for the shower, turning the valve all the way, letting scalding hot water pour over the fresh bruises on his body. He leaned his head on the too-white tiles and exhaled a long, weary sigh.

Lonely.

He was so fucking lonely that he had to kick his own ass just to feel something other than anger or that chill in his bones. Just to feel alive.

Not that it would matter after they would eventually set course for the Omega-4 relay.

_What if we survive?_ The question buzzed through his brain like an annoying mosquito he couldn't swat away. Survive? After all the bullshit he'd been through? It was too much to go down that road of thinking.

_"At least it will make all that suffering mean something,”_ he whispered to himself, just like he whispered on their graves all those years ago. A whisper that set him on his path. Of doing good. Of saving lives.

Was it the same path now too? Would this suffering, this new suffering mean something? Or would he die once more, a martyr for the galaxy, for good this time?

A body, a revenant, a soul. A man. He was still a man, still a mortal. Wanting what mortals wanted. A normal life. Friends, normal friends. Not friends that had to steal his own dead body from Reaper-controlled parasites to give to another group of parasites. A lover, someone to pin him against a wall and kiss him, his eyes full of want and passion. Someone he could wrap his arms around as they lay entwined with each other, bare and spent. A lover that would perhaps turn into something more eventually, a family, a husband. Retiring, growing old together. Not worrying about saving lives.

Was that so...wrong?

The path he was on had saved a lot of lives, on Elysium, on the Citadel, on every N7 mission Anderson used to send him on. But that path destroyed a four year relationship. It destroyed his body, too. _At least it will make all that suffering mean something._ What meaning would death have when one couldn't even enjoy life?

His enhanced skin began to sting. He'd stayed in the shower for too long.

A quick soapy rinse, he finished up and got out, bruises on his body, and sleep on his mind.

Heat radiated off of him. And yet, his sheets were cold. They had been cold for five years now, three for him. N7 training, becoming a Spectre, stopping Saren, always that need, always the path, no time nor space for something else, for something _more_.

And now he might not even get the chance for that _more_.

He turned to his right, to the drawer, the drawer that held a small insignificant piece of paper tucked inside his armor padding. He reached out an arm across the empty sheets and slowly drifted to sleep, that chill creeping into his chest once more, like it had never really left.


End file.
